


Pray

by lxghtwoodlxve



Series: Reminisce [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Fictional Religion & Theology, Gen, Give Sansa Stark A Damn Break, How Does Sansa Find A Weirwood In King's Landing You Ask?, I Say: Thank The Gods For Olenna Tyrell, The Old Gods (ASoIaF), Weirwood(s), no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-09
Updated: 2020-01-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:49:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22185889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lxghtwoodlxve/pseuds/lxghtwoodlxve
Summary: There are no weirwood trees in the South, Sansa knows.
Relationships: Sansa Stark & Margaery Tyrell, Sansa Stark & Olenna Tyrell, Shae & Sansa Stark
Series: Reminisce [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1655650
Comments: 6
Kudos: 61





	Pray

**Author's Note:**

> hello! it's been a while. i hope you're all well.  
> me? write a gen fic? more likely than you'd think  
> i'm helpless against the rolling tides of my muse  
> stay safe, my darlings!  
> -t <3

There are no weirwood trees in the South. 

Sansa knew this, of course, before she, her sister, and her father went down the Kingsroad. She knew that she was leaving her home, her safety, to please the King. She had a Septa, she dressed in fine clothes, she asked her maids to do Southron hair.

She was young, and foolish, and in love with a pretty Prince that said all the right things. 

Then her father’s head is cut off, her sister escapes, her family are branded traitors, and she's alone. 

Queen Regent Cersei is crueler than before, when she was just the wife of King Robert and good at masking her fear of him. Now she’s the ruler of the roost. Everyone knows that Joffrey has no real power - it’s Cersei, and Acting Hand of the King Tyrion, and the Small Council. When Sansa can find a moment of peace in the Godswood after pretending to pray in the Sept, she begins to think that the stump of a birch tree is an adequate substitute for a weirwood. She knows that the Old Gods hold no power in the South, without their heart trees, but she prays. She prays for Robb to win the war, for Joffrey to fall sick, for Cersei to forget she exists. It makes it easier, she likes to believe, if she can pray for her own Gods to help. She’s getting good at pretending, but she’s not sure she can fool herself yet.

When the Tyrells arrive, she’s released from her betrothal in front of an entire court of gossiping Southron subjects. She keeps her mask on - she lets a few tears slip down her cheeks for show, but she has to work to keep the laughter bubbling in her chest from spilling over. The Gods have smiled upon her. Finally, they’ve heard her prayers.

She turns away and lets a face-splitting smile spread, lets her head tilt back; nobody can see. They’re all still fawning over the Tyrells.

“Lady Sansa,” Lord Baelish then says, and the bubbles stop. He speaks of tragedy, of decorum, of Joffrey’s brutality, and she’s slammed back into the world around her. The Old Gods have no power here, so deep in the South. It was foolish of her to forget, or even dream otherwise.

Eventually, almost a sennight later, Margaery approaches her, and is far kinder than she has any need to be.

They strike up a quick accord. It’s a relief, to be distracted, to be hidden from Cersei and Joffrey. She's squirreled away in Margaery’s chambers embroidering or playing silly girlhood games on the sands or walking through the gardens. The Tyrells are untouchable, Lady Olenna intimates to her. They’ve given far too much to the crown for them to be shunned for befriending a traitor’s daughter, so she’s given lemon cakes, and new fabrics, and a cyvasse board. They teach her to play, and she learns too slowly, but they're patient. The fabrics are made into new gloves and gowns and cloaks, and with only a little encouragement from Olenna and Margaery, a pair of Tyrell ladies-in-waiting fawn over them. It doesn't seem to be falsehood or cruelty, and she offers to make them each a pair of gloves.

(It only takes her the few days until the full moon to complete them, embroidered wheat and roses and all, but she waits another sennight to gift them. The Tyrell ladies-in-waiting are obvious in their surprise, but accept the gifts graciously. She's rewarded another sennight later with two silken handerchiefs: one embroidered with twisting vines, the other with Stark direwolves.)

It's not perfect, by any means. Cersei cannot be avoided altogether, so the gowns Sansa makes herself are plainer than she'd like and she keeps the pretense of mourning the betrothal. Joffrey cannot be avoided altogether, so she ensures she always has a reason to be somewhere else, and ends up improving her geography skills far past what she'd thought herself capable. Tyrion cannot be avoided at all, given that he's bedding Sansa's handmaid. It's a Southron court, and nothing can be hidden. Some servants speak of Sansa's prayers at the birch tree. Some think that Tyrion is bedding Sansa rather than Shae, and react with disgusted laughter. Some think that the good King Joffrey is still bedding Sansa, too, and that it's the reason for he and Tyrion's open feuding. It's all folly, but Sansa does cherish when Tyrion joins her and Shae for a game of cyvasse and a jug of wine.

One day, as Sansa and Shae and Margaery and Lady Olenna are sat embroidering in the gardens, they ask her about the Old Gods. 

“It’s a common phrase. ‘I swear by the Old Gods and the New.’” Margaery pretends at nonchalance, but Sansa can see true interest behind her eyes. “Do you still keep the Old Gods, Sansa?”

“Of course she does,” Lady Olenna announces in that brusque manner she has. “She’s a Stark.”

Margaery has long since stopped apologising for her grandmother’s nature, and barrels on. “But you must pray to them, surely?”

“In truth, Lady Margaery, I haven’t been able to pray to them since I was a girl. Not properly.” Sansa says. She didn’t mean to. “There are no weirwood trees this far South.”

“Nonsense.” Lady Olenna waves forward the cupbearer. “I heard rumours that there’s the stump of a weirwood near the sea, down a long, crooked path.”

“Thank you, my lady, but I confess I mostly pray to the Seven. I had a Septa, growing up, you see.” Then she leans forward to take a drink, and spots the thoughtful look on Shae’s face. She’s distracted by Margaery gushing over Sansa’s latest work. It’s a handkerchief, and she’s almost finished with the embroidered lions and roses, and Margaery thinks that it's a symbol of Sansa's recent betrothal to Tyrion. She cannot wait until she can gift it to Margaery for her nameday instead.

The afternoon is passed in comfortable tales of Shae's - stories from Lorath, and Volantis, and Bravos, though Shae would never tell anything too personal. Margaery asks Sansa for a few Northern folk tales, and Sansa obliges with what she can remember from Old Nan. The ladies seem suitably scared of the tales of White Walkers and Wights, of Wildling lovers and battles in the snow. The North was never one for pretty tales, but Sansa does what she can to make them sound pretty, and adds details of romance and chivalry where either element is lacking. Lady Olenna watches her the entire time, a thoughtful expression on her face.

It’s a sennight before anybody talks of the weirwood stump again. Sansa and Shae are walking through the godswood. It’s habit, at this point, to go to the birch stump and kneel, but Shae stops her with a gentle touch to her elbow. 

“My lady, surely you’d like to pray at the weirwood Lady Olenna mentioned?” Shae is exceedingly gentle with her, but a fierce protector all the same. “I can help you find it.”

Sansa barely hesitates. “Thank you, Shae.”

Lady Olenna was correct - it’s down a long, crumbling, crooked path, but the ground around the stump is smooth, with a waist-high wall around it. It feels like home to kneel, to touch the stump. Her hands tingle, like her very skin is excited to touch it, like the Old Gods are welcoming her back. 

Sansa prays for mercy. Mercy for her family. For Shae, and Margaery, and Lady Olenna. For the Tyrell ladies-in-waiting and their kindness. For Prince Tommen, and Princess Myrcella, who have done nothing wrong except for being Lannisters. For the young squire she saw with Tyrion Lannister, who seems to be the most purely good person in existence. Even for poor Tyrion Lannister himself, who is ridden roughshod by his entire family and deeply scarred after the Battle of the Blackwater.

Shae is tactful. She doesn’t nag, she doesn’t interrupt. She just waits until Sansa’s head rises from its rest on her clasped hands and helps Sansa dust off her dress. They walk back to the Keep at a sedate pace, in comfortable silence. They repeat the process every few days, and neither of them mention it to anybody. An unspoken agreement, but Lady Olenna gives her a satisfied smile the next time they meet.

There are no real weirwoods in the South, she knows. But a stump near the Blackwater down a rough path is the closest she’s going to get.


End file.
